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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29408805">this quiet game of hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael/pseuds/asael'>asael</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Casual Sex, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, M/M, Maybe not so casual, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:54:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,698</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29408805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael/pseuds/asael</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins as a game, so Claude is sure it doesn't mean anything. Years later, after a war, he starts to realize that maybe that was never true.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Claudevain Valentine Weekend</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>this quiet game of hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written for Claudevain Valentine Weekend! I started with the prompt 'honesty, sincerity' but if anything I went in the opposite direction. Regardless, I hope you enjoy! ♥</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It all starts as a game, the objective being to annoy Hubert as much as possible. It’s childish, really, and very silly, but considering the deadly seriousness of so much of their lives, aren’t they allowed to be silly sometimes? Aren’t they allowed to be childish, when it won’t hurt anyone?</p><p>They’re spending the afternoon playing a different game together - a strategy game, meant to hone their skills. It was Claude’s idea to begin with, and of course it was a scheme. An obvious one, he thinks. In the lead-up to the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, Claude fully intends to get the measure of his possible opponents. He casually invited a number of people and received a number of responses, but Hubert and Sylvain were the only two to accept - though Edelgard did pause long enough that Claude thinks she wanted to. He’ll remember that.</p><p>But in the end it’s Sylvain, Hubert, and himself. He spins it as a fun way to spend an afternoon, and Sylvain plays along with a smile, but Hubert - of course - takes it much more seriously.</p><p>It’s fun, for awhile. Sylvain plays lazily but with flashes of intelligence, while Hubert is always out for blood. Claude enjoys testing himself against them, enjoys the annoyance in Hubert’s eyes when he loses. Claude, however, isn’t the one who picks up on his other source of annoyance - the easy, meaningless banter that Claude and Sylvain engage in.</p><p>They’re just talking, volleying words back and forth. It’s another kind of game, trading gossip and occasional barbs, and Hubert does not like it. It’s not the sort of game that appeals to him at all - too frivolous, too juvenile. Claude, too focused on his next move in the actual game they’re playing, doesn’t notice the way Hubert’s brows draw down, not until he says, with an edge to his voice, “<em>If </em>you two are both finished flirting.”</p><p>It’s clearly meant to quell them. Claude looks up with a smile and raised eyebrows, right into an answering look from Sylvain across the table. </p><p>They weren’t flirting - only chatting - but <em>now</em> they are.</p><p>“Oh, sweetheart,” Sylvain says, when Claude takes one of his pieces, “why not just my heart instead?” He pouts, and he’s got a good one, which makes Claude smile.</p><p>“Don’t worry, gorgeous,” Claude says with a wink, “you’ll get me back next time.”</p><p>Hubert makes an annoyed noise, which only encourages them. They spend the rest of the afternoon flirting with each other exaggeratedly, enjoying Hubert’s mounting annoyance, until he’s finally had enough and stalks off.</p><p>That’s where it starts. That isn’t where it ends. Game nights don’t turn into a regular thing - they all have too much to do - but they do get together a couple more times, and each time the flirting is just as much a game as the actual thing.</p><p>Claude’s never really been that much of a flirt, though his easy manner and casual way of treating everyone sometimes confuses people, he knows. So it’s fun for him, especially because Sylvain only seems to find it funnier the more ridiculous he gets. Claude is, of course, well aware of Sylvain’s reputation - and he thinks that’s why it’s fun for Sylvain, in turn. Claude doesn’t want anything from him, save for a few laughs and a bit of a challenge. There’s no chance of him taking Sylvain’s words seriously, no chance of it meaning a thing.</p><p>Which is why it’s not such a surprise when it carries on outside of their games. Claude would have expected the fun to dull when Hubert isn’t there to actively annoy, but he’s wrong. Sylvain runs into him in the library, winks and asks what someone as pretty as him is doing in a place like this, and Claude can’t resist playing along and flirting back until they’re both swallowing their laughter, trying to ignore the dagger-like glare of another student doing homework nearby.</p><p>After that it becomes habit. When Claude is with Hilda, they play off each other like friends. When he’s with Lorenz, he ribs him for fun and to see how he’ll react. When he’s around Sylvain, he flirts.</p><p>They don’t spend that much time together. They’re in different classes, after all, and Claude has never really considered them friends. But now when they pass each other on the way to class or the training grounds, Claude winks at Sylvain. Now, when Sylvain leans past Claude in the dining hall to get another serving, he says, “‘scuse me, babe.”</p><p>It’s a game, and Hilda’s confused and vaguely horrified reaction is completely worth it. They never make a big deal of it, and eventually their classmates catch on to the game, and the gossip dies down. </p><p>It’s when people stop talking that things change.</p><p>It feels like an accident, but later Claude wonders if it was inevitable. The extent of his friendship with Sylvain, if that’s what it is, is over-the-top flirting in the halls, nothing more. He never expects it to be more.</p><p>But one night he runs into Sylvain on the way back from the library. </p><p>“I got turned down,” Sylvain says with a pout. “Walk you back?”</p><p>Claude laughs. “You know I’d never turn you down, handsome.”</p><p>They walk back together, and something about Sylvain seems a little off. It’s not like Claude knows him that well, not really - but there’s just something about the way he holds himself, the way his lines are a touch meaner than usual.</p><p>Claude is curious. He’s never been able to resist his own curiosity. When they get back to their rooms, Claude invites him in for tea.</p><p>Sylvain looks at him for a long moment. Then he accepts.</p><p>They talk for awhile about nothing in particular. Their classes, their classmates, observations about Garreg Mach. Sylvain is funny, and sharper than most people think. Eventually, when his cup is almost empty, his eyes slide away from Claude’s.</p><p>“I was the one who walked away,” he says, as if it’s a horrible secret. “She was pretty, but - well, you know.”</p><p>Claude doesn’t know. He has no idea. He’s never turned anyone down, because no one’s ever wanted him like that. But he doesn’t think that’s what Sylvain is looking for here, and so he smiles. </p><p>“Yeah,” he says, because it seems like a safe response.</p><p>“They’re always after the crest,” Sylvain says, bitterness twisting his mouth. “I’m just a way there. And sometimes I want to let them believe - and other times I don’t even want that.”</p><p>Claude is silent for a moment. The truth is, he didn’t even know crests existed until he came to Fódlan. The truth is, he only vaguely knows what Sylvain means. But it’s clear it weighs on him. It’s clear he’s frustrated, upset, hurting.</p><p>And so Claude says what he’s thinking, because why not? If Sylvain takes it poorly, it’s not like they’re close friends. They aren’t anything. “You’re assuming that’s why,” he says, and he grins. “Maybe they want your crest, sure. Maybe they want your title. But look at you - handsome, clever, charming. A good friend, when you want to be. Maybe they’re just looking for a nice time.” He winks, making it part of their game, making it meaningless. “I mean, it’s not like<em> I</em> like you for your crest.”</p><p>Sylvain stares at him for a moment. Claude doesn’t know what he sees, and then he says, “No, I guess you don’t,” and he smiles, and he leans in to kiss Claude.</p><p>It wasn’t what Claude was expecting, not by a long shot. He doesn’t know what to make of it, but they’ve been flirting all this time, and some part of Claude reacts on instinct, sees this as just part of the game.</p><p>He kisses Sylvain back.</p><p>It’s good. It’s <em>nice</em>. Sylvain knows what he’s doing - of course he does - and Claude is at least a fast enough learner that he doesn’t embarrass himself. They kiss, and they kiss again, and eventually Sylvain’s lips are on his neck, and the next day Claude has to carefully hide a mark that Sylvain’s mouth has worried into his skin.</p><p>And he can’t quite stop thinking about it.</p><p>It escalates from there. How could it not? Claude has never been wanted before, and though he knows it doesn’t mean anything, that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy it. Sylvain is a practiced liar, he knows how to kiss like Claude’s the only thing he could ever want, and Claude is not immune to that, even when he knows it’s a game.</p><p>They don’t spend any more time together outside their rooms than they did before. Sylvain still flirts with half the girls he meets - Claude sees him do it. But under the cover of night, more and more often, Claude finds himself letting Sylvain into his room, or sometimes slipping into Sylvain’s instead. </p><p>He’s never done anything like this before, but either he fakes it well enough that Sylvain can’t tell, or Sylvain just doesn’t feel like calling him on it. He knows that this isn’t the first time for Sylvain, knows that he’s probably got girls in his room the nights they don’t spend together, but he never asks. Claude isn’t the jealous sort, and they make no promises to each other, but he still doesn’t particularly want to know.</p><p>In truth, he isn’t sure what he does want, except Sylvain’s mouth on his mouth, Sylvain’s hands on his skin. Claude learns how he likes to be touched, and how he doesn’t, and he learns that for all his careless reputation, Sylvain doesn’t push his boundaries, never asks for something he’s not willing to give.</p><p>He learns what Sylvain likes, too. He learns how to suck a cock - a skill he never really imagined he’d need, but that he turns out to be pretty good at.</p><p>“A natural,” Sylvain says, still breathless, his hand still tangled in Claude’s hair. Claude grins, knowing Sylvain is just flattering him, as he always does, but liking it anyway. He learns how to do it better, learns what it feels like when Sylvain’s mouth is on him.</p><p>Claude has been curious about these kinds of things before - who wouldn’t be? But he’d set it aside, focusing on everything else he needed to survive, knowing it wouldn’t be easy for someone like him to find a partner anyway. But Sylvain is game for anything, down to give it all a try as long as it involves their bodies pressed into sweat-soaked sheets, and Claude is content to indulge in that give and take.</p><p>The first time they fuck is quite a revelation. A handful of nights later, Sylvain lets Claude pin his wrists down and ride him until he’s begging, Claude’s name a breathless plea on his lips.</p><p>Most surprising, maybe, is that some nights they just talk. </p><p>Not about anything important. Sylvain keeps his secrets, and Claude keeps his own, and by now they both know better than to try to pry anything free. Both of them like this quiet balance too much to get rid of it, and if either of them pries too much, they know it’ll shatter. So they talk about - well, anything. The games they like to play, weapons practice, their classmates, books they’ve read. Sylvain is smarter than he likes to pretend, and since Claude doesn’t particularly want anything from him that he’s not already getting, he feels free to show that side of himself when they’re alone together.</p><p>They trade books back and forth, and then they talk about them, laughing over ridiculous passages in the lighter ones and discussing the ideas in the rest. They talk about tactics, but never too seriously. They talk about their classes, their other friends, but never give away any secrets.</p><p>They keep playing at love. Sylvain calls him <em>beautiful </em>and <em>sweetheart</em> and says things like <em>who could look at anyone else when you’re in the room</em>? And Claude laughs and makes up his own terms of endearment. He says the usual things, telling Sylvain he’s handsome and charming and irresistible, but he likes other things better. He likes to tell Sylvain that he’s clever and kind, a generous lover, insightful. It’s all true, of course, but all it takes is the right intonation, the right twist of his mouth, and it’s just another part of their game.</p><p>He thinks Sylvain doesn’t hear that kind of thing often. Sylvain might say the same things to Claude that he says to every girl he coaxes into his arms, and Claude is well aware of it, but Claude’s never had anyone say things like that to him before. It’s not as if he lets it go to his head - he knows they’re only playing, that Sylvain doesn’t love him and likely couldn’t - but it’s still nice to hear <em>you have the most beautiful eyes </em>instead of <em>you can tell he’s not properly Almyran, with eyes like that.</em></p><p>Claude knows better than to let his emotions get tangled up in this. He likes Sylvain, and he thinks they’re friends now - and a little bit more intimate than usual, given the amount of times Sylvain has slipped out of Claude’s bed in the dim light of morning - but he’s not foolish enough to think they could ever be anything more than that. He’s just convenient, a lover who doesn’t expect anything from Sylvain, someone who couldn’t care less about his crest or his title.</p><p>But he’s no different. He knows exactly what Sylvain wants from him, and so Claude can give it without worrying about ulterior motives, without watching his back or fearing betrayal. They’re using each other, or so Claude thinks. So Claude tells himself.</p><p>He’s young, and he’s clever, but there’s so much he doesn’t know yet.</p><p>They see each other less often as unrest begins to rise. Whispers of war, and Claude needs to think about how to handle this, Sylvain needs to worry about his friends and his king. They steal less time together, and when they do, it’s more desperate, both of them trying so hard to pretend things are normal.</p><p>Claude knows change is coming, but he doesn’t know when. He takes a chance - the tiniest of chances, something innocuous and yet still foolish, because he likes Sylvain. Because he wants Sylvain to know the smallest piece of him.</p><p>He lends Sylvain a book about Almyra.</p><p>They’ve never talked about it. By now, Claude thinks Sylvain is more than clever enough to have picked up that he’s not native to Fódlan, but he’s never asked, never commented on it. Claude, of course, has avoided the subject as well. Just another secret that he doesn’t share. But there’s some part of him - a selfish and foolish part - that wants to know what Sylvain would think if he knew.</p><p>Not the whole truth. Not who Claude’s parents are, not the unpleasant stories from his childhood - though by now Claude knows that Sylvain has plenty of those himself. This is just a small thing, a careful overture. The book is from Leicester, so it has a lot of inaccuracies, some of them straight up offensive. Claude wants to see what Sylvain thinks of them. See what he thinks of Almyra. He knows his simple desire for that is dangerous, but he can’t help himself.</p><p>It doesn’t matter anyway. In the end, the war begins while Sylvain still has the book. Claude isn’t even sure he had a chance to open it. And then he has other things to think about - too many of them. So, too, does Sylvain.</p><p>The next time Claude sees him, it’s at Gronder Field.</p><p>Claude is fighting a war, his professor at his side and his classmates following him. He’s fighting a war and holding a country together, and he doesn’t have time for memories. But when he sees Sylvain’s face across the battlefield, his memories certainly seem to have time for him.</p><p>Their eyes meet. Sylvain smiles at him, a bitter little twist of his lips that pains Claude because it’s so familiar. He always used to know that when Sylvain smiled like that, he was quietly desperate for a distraction. And Claude used to be happy to provide it with a teasing word or an unexpected compliment or a stolen kiss. He hadn’t realized, back then, how well he’d really known Sylvain.</p><p>Five years later, he still remembers all the small things.</p><p>Claude thinks about finding him after the battle, but that isn’t how it goes. He survives - Claude knows that much, at least, thanks to Leonie’s keen eyes - but Dimitri is dead, his followers scattered. For a little while, Claude wonders if Sylvain might join them, might decide to continue fighting. But he doesn’t.</p><p>Claude still has a war to fight. He can’t spare time for a childhood lover, no matter how sweet the memories are. But he can’t help wondering if things could have been different. Sylvain had joked, once or twice, about leaving his class and joining Claude’s Golden Deer.</p><p>“You’ve got that hot professor,” he said, “and then I could follow you around all day.” He leered, ridiculously, and slid his hand down over Claude’s ass. They’d been in bed, half-clothed, kissing lazily. “It’d be a nice view.”</p><p>But he’d never actually offered, and Claude hadn’t asked. He knew, just from the way Sylvain talked about them, that he loved his friends. That he would regret leaving them, if he did.</p><p>Now, Claude wonders if joining his Deer might have spared Sylvain more pain than it would have caused. He doesn’t know. He only knows that, for all the many things he’s had to handle, he has still often thought of Sylvain. At least if he had been with the Deer, they would have seen each other again.</p><p>That’s a selfish thought, and he knows it. He focuses on the war. </p><p>As they approach Enbarr, a package arrives among the many missives Claude receives daily. He doesn’t have time to open it, but he sees the seal. </p><p>He’s never written to Sylvain, never received anything before. Still, he recognizes the Gautier seal.</p><p>It’s only after Enbarr that he has a moment to himself. After Edelgard’s death, after everything seems to be over. It isn’t, of course, and Claude already knows that. But he gives his troops a moment to celebrate, gives himself a moment to breathe.</p><p>He opens the package. There’s no letter inside, only a book. His book, the one he gave to Sylvain five years ago, on the eve of a war that’s almost over.</p><p>Inside the cover is written:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
  <em>Claude,</em>
</p>
  <p>
  <em>Can't say how nice it was to see that pretty face of yours. I wanted to give this back - sorry about all the notes. I’ll buy you a new copy if you want.</em>
</p>
</blockquote><p>Inside, on nearly every page, are notes made in Sylvain’s neat handwriting. Claude pages through slowly, and he sees how the ink changes, how even the handwriting changes a little. He sees the slightly faded color of the earliest notes, a stark contrast to the dark ink of the message inside the cover. One was written recently - less than a week or two ago. The other is old, years old.</p><p>Sylvain must have begun writing in the book shortly after the war began, shortly after it became blindingly clear that they would not be able to talk about it in person. And he’d kept doing it, small moments over the course of years. Moments when he was thinking of Claude.</p><p>The early notes are observations, little asides, clearly meant more for himself than for anyone else. The later ones turn into something else, slowly but surely. They become missives to Claude, comments on the book interspersed with observations on the war, the state of Leicester and Faerghus.</p><p>Even, here and there, something else.</p><p>Next to a passage about Almyra’s known admiration for and skill with wyverns, Sylvain has written:</p><p>
  <em>I saw you practicing one afternoon. I don’t think you saw me. Class was over, and you were in the air, flying like you’d been born to it. Even all the way up there, I could see you smiling. I still think of that sometimes.</em>
</p><p>Something twists on Claude’s chest, something painful. What they’d had was never serious. Sylvain wasn’t serious about anyone, least of all a boy like Claude. He’d known that all along. But now, reading this, his thoughts begin to realign themselves.</p><p>On another page, in the middle of a chapter about about Almyra’s contested border with Fódlan:</p><p>
  <em>Imagine visiting the Locket someday. I bet you’ve been. I bet you could show me all the best views. Maybe in a better world we could have done something like that. </em>
</p><p>Claude flips through the pages, lost in memories, transfixed by the strange feeling of being seen. Sylvain mentions things Claude told him, stray thoughts, a slightly altered Almyran legend he told one night when neither of them could sleep. He has clear-minded, clever thoughts on the book itself. He notices when things seem biased, and more than once writes, <em>There’s no way this is true. They’re just people, like us.</em></p><p>Claude stays up all night reading.</p><p>On the last page, in new ink, is written:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
  <em>Maybe we won’t see each other again, but I wanted you to know that every word I said back then was true.</em>
</p>
  <p>
  <em>Just kidding. You’re already rolling your eyes, aren’t you? Most of it was exactly what we both knew it was - just a game.</em>
</p>
  <p>
  <em>But some of it was real, Claude. I was a stupid kid, but I knew I had something special for a little while.</em>
</p>
  <p>
  <em>Stay safe, and keep saving the world. You’re still something special.</em>
</p>
</blockquote><p>Claude traces his fingers over the letters. His emotions are a complicated thing, not easily untangled. He thinks of one night, lips on his in the darkness, Sylvain whispering in his ear. </p><p><em>I could fall in love with you</em>, he’d said, and Claude had laughed. It was just another of Sylvain’s lines, the kind of thing that someone who didn’t know him might believe. Claude knew better. Had known better since they began their entanglement.</p><p>Now he thinks that there were a lot of things he didn’t understand.</p><p>He puts the book away, hand lingering on the cover for a long moment. He still has a war to fight, after all. He doesn’t have time to wonder, to think, to reorder his memories. Not even if it seems that Sylvain saw him differently, more clearly than Claude had imagined.</p><p>There will be time for that later, Claude promises himself, because there is no space in his heart for the idea that he might not survive. He will survive, and he will win.</p><p>And he does.</p><p>It’s not singlehanded. It was never going to be. He wins with the strength he’s found through friendship and trust, he wins because Fódlan deserves a chance to be more than what it is. Don’t they all deserve such a chance? Isn’t that what everyone is looking for, somewhere deep down?</p><p>They will crown a new ruler soon, and then the rebuilding will begin. Claude has set everything in order, enough so that he will not be needed for it. He has other demands on his time, other things tugging at his heart, another country to try to usher into a new era.</p><p>But first, he flies to the north.</p><p>Gautier is farther north than Claude’s ever had reason to go before. He notes the chill of the air, the skinny pine trees, the austere landscape. It’s not so dissimilar to some parts of the land he grew up in. When people live at the extremes, they must redefine what it means to survive, what it means to be strong.</p><p>He shivers in the air, though, pulls his cloak tighter around him.</p><p>Sylvain meets him in the courtyard of the Gautier castle. No guards have come out to demand reasons for Claude’s unexpected arrival, so he knows that Sylvain saw his approach. Recognized him.</p><p>They exchange banal greetings and Sylvain offers Claude welcome and shelter. They look at each other, and Claude sees all the things he didn’t get a chance to see across a battlefield - how Sylvain has changed, the weariness in his eyes, the set of his shoulders. </p><p>Claude won the war. Sylvain lost his.</p><p>They talk once they’re inside, once Sylvain has settled Claude before a fire and brought him mulled wine and warm food. “You came a long way,” Sylvain says, and there’s a question in his voice.</p><p>“I wasn’t sure if you were coming for the coronation.” Sylvain has been sent an invitation, of course - though his father still lives and holds the Gautier title, Sylvain is his heir. He was invited, as every noble of Fódlan was.</p><p>“I haven’t decided yet,” Sylvain says. “It’d be nice to see people again. But…”</p><p>That ‘but’ holds a world of meaning. Claude knows that Sylvain’s former classmates have scattered, some disappearing to live their lives as they please, some accepting the burdens that have fallen on their shoulders. Some dead. Sylvain will see some of them if he comes to the coronation, but that might hold more bitterness than comfort. It’s not for Claude to say.</p><p>“You sent me something,” he says instead. He brought it with him, though he isn’t sure why - it isn’t as if he’s planning to pull it out of his pack and shove it in Sylvain’s face. Perhaps he simply needed a physical reminder to give him courage. </p><p>“Oh yeah?” Sylvain smiles. It’s a shadow of the cocky thing he once wore so easily. “Glad it got to you. Sorry I took so long to return it.”</p><p>“No. It came at the right time.”</p><p>Silence falls between them. Claude wonders for a moment if there’s any point to this. Neither of them is the boy they once were, and whatever was between them back then is impossible to return to.</p><p>But that doesn’t mean there can’t be something new. Claude has come this far, and he has such a long path ahead of him.</p><p>“It’s pretty dreary here,” he says with a grin, gesturing out the window. Clouds hang over the land, threatening rain - or snow, perhaps, given how cold it is. “You like it?”</p><p>Sylvain doesn’t answer immediately. He knows, Claude thinks, that it isn’t such a simple question. “It’s my home,” he says finally. “This’ll all be mine someday.” There’s a cynicism to his voice, a weariness. It’s familiar. An echo of the twist in his mouth when he talked about being Margrave one day, when Claude trailed his fingers up Sylvain’s arm and said, <em>Well, technically I outrank you, so don’t get too big of a head.</em></p><p>Sylvain had laughed then, the lines easing from his forehead. Claude thinks about the care Sylvain took with his book, the openness there, the lack of judgment.</p><p>“But not today,” Claude says, and he smiles. “You ever thought of traveling? I’ve got somewhere to be, after the coronation. I wouldn’t mind a companion on the journey.”</p><p>Sylvain looks at him, studies his face. Claude doesn’t know what he’s seen there - what he’s always seen there. He knows that they misjudged each other, that they missed a step. He knows that there were moments, back then, when one of them could have reached out, and didn’t. Out of fear, out of caution. Out of self-preservation.</p><p>After five years of war, Claude is tired of all of those things.</p><p>Sylvain doesn’t ask Claude where he’s going. He doesn’t ask why he would leave Fódlan instead of taking the throne for himself. He doesn’t ask any of the questions he could. Instead he just looks for a long moment, and then, finally, he moves.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, “all right.” He reaches out though the gap between them, his fingers finding their way to the back of Claude’s hand. The lightest touch, barely anything, but it’s warm. Sylvain has always run hot. Claude, who hates the cold, has always liked it.</p><p>“It’s time for something new,” Sylvain says, and he smiles.</p>
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